Some people are casual gamers. Some people are dedicated fans. And then there's Commander Malibu, an Elite Dangerous pilot who spent a month—a real, Earth-time month—drawing the game's logo across the spiraling face of the Milky Way galaxy.
The logo is roughly 36,400 light years across and required a journey of 375,000 light years, through 6500 jumps, to complete. And it took a freakin' month, as you can see in the time lapse video above.
"Basically, what I did was to transform some points of the real elite logo into coordinates (X and Z), then I manually looked at my galaxy map, for each of those points, and bookmark a system at the designated coordinates. But I didn't use any existing, or known POI system in my route," Malibu explained in an Elite Dangerous forum post. "I didn't even allow myself to go to any outpost to repair my ship, I had to call the magnificent Fuel Rats for some emergency hull repair."
As for why he put this much time into drawing some galactic graffiti, Malibu said in an email that he'd been feeling the urge to explore, but didn't have anywhere in particular to go.
"I've been playing the game for more than three years, and I explored a lot, so now I'm looking at fun things to do in the game," he explained. "That's how it came to my mind. It has never been done before, it could look cool, so let's go, let's do it."
It was quite a challenge, too: Not because of the threat of Thargoids or hostile players, but because the course he was following had to be very precise. "I knew I would had to be really cautious in my route plotting, because if I missed only one 'path,' I would have ruined the whole drawing, and it would be over," Malibu said.
"It also put my mental health through the mill: 6500 jumps from system to system, alone in the vastness of the galaxy... It's very demanding. But I knew about all this when I started my trip, and this is why I'm so proud of it now."
And he has no regrets about the amount of time it took to complete the job: "Even if it would have taken two, three, four, or more months, I would have done it. Elite is time consuming anyway, so this month I devoted to the drawing wasn't wasted."
For the benefit of anyone who'd like to follow in his footsteps, he shared the bookmarks used to plan the expedition on Pastebin.
Thanks, USGamer.
Update: Comments from the pilot, Malibu, have been added to the story.
